Kathie Lee Gifford to join NBC's `Today'

NEW YORK - Kathie Lee Gifford will soon be back on TV's early shift. The former co-star of the syndicated "Live" talk show will join NBC's "Today" next Monday. She will be teamed with Hoda Kotb (pronounced HO-dah COT-bee), a current anchor of the program's seven-month-old fourth hour, which airs live at 10 a.m. EDT.

The announcement was made during Monday's broadcast, with Gifford seated alongside the program's established stars, including Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, co-hosts of the first two hours.

Gifford, 54, who left Regis Philbin and "Live" in 2000, joked that the timing of her TV return "couldn't be worse" in certain ways: "I'm eight years older, 10 pounds heavier, a half-inch shorter, and just in time for HD television."

Long married to former NFL star and sports announcer Frank Gifford, she joked, "It's going to be good to be working. I'm really tired of staying home and watching Frank's old highlight films."

Ann Curry will continue her role as news anchor of the 7 a.m.-9 a.m. hours of "Today," as well as co-host, with Al Roker, of the 9 a.m. hour. Natalie Morales will join Curry and Roker as a third co-host at 9 a.m, and will serve as the show's national correspondent, the network said.

Astronauts prepare for fifth spacewalk

Astronauts prepare for fifth spacewalk

HOUSTON - After a final inspection of Endeavour's thermal shield, astronauts aboard the linked shuttle-station complex began preparing for a Saturday spacewalk to store on the station the laser-tipped boom they used to search for damageEvery shuttle crew that's flown since the Columbia disaster has used the boom to check for problems with the shield that protects the ship from the searing heat of re-entry.

The boom is being left at the space station because there won't be room for it in Discovery's payload bay on its next mission because the enormous Japanese Kibo lab will take up almost every square inch.

Astronauts Robert Behnken and Michael Foreman plan to attach the 50-foot inspection boom to the outside of the space station on Saturday during the fifth and final spacewalk of Endeavour's mission. Discovery will carry the boom back to Earth after its mission ends.

Shortly after reaching orbit last week, the astronauts attached the boom to Endeavour's 50-foot robot arm to check the wings and nose for any launch damage. None was found. They repeated the inspection Friday in the remote chance the wings or nose were struck by a micrometeorite or space junk during the past week and a half.

The inspection went smoothly and nothing stood out in early examinations of the images, shuttle flight director Mike Moses said. He expected the analysis to be complete by Sunday.

"The crew was well trained. They executed well. Everything went perfect," Moses said.

After the boom is secure, Behnken will try again to attach a couple of suitcase-sized science experiments to the outside of the European Columbus lab. He had trouble getting the first experiment to latch down in an earlier spacewalk.

Meanwhile, Foreman will conduct yet another inspection of a solar rotary joint that's been broken since last fall. NASA still doesn't know what might be causing the metal parts to grind, clogging the joint with shavings.

Foreman will check out a pockmark spotted in images gathered by other spacewalkers. If it's a divot, Moses said, it could be "a hint towards our smoking gun." Then again, he said, it could just be a large clump of debris.

Foreman also will remove some thermal covers to check whether it's possible a micrometeorite hit showered debris throughout the joint, which is supposed to continuously rotate 360 degrees to keep the solar wings pointing toward the sun.

Saturday night's spacewalk will wrap up Endeavour's space station work and clear the way for undocking on Monday night. It will be the most spacewalks ever performed during a joint shuttle-station flight.

NASA, meanwhile, may be forced to delay some of the year's later shuttle flights — including the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission at the end of August — because of a slowdown in building new external fuel tanks with post-Columbia design changes. Shuttle officials are evaluating the schedule and what can be done, if anything, to keep the launches on track.

Crashed probe yields Sun sun secrets

Crashed probe yields Sun secrets

Scientists have measured the composition of oxygen at the birth of the Solar System.
The discovery is a vital piece of data for reconstructing the evolution of our cosmic neighbourhood.
Nasa's Genesis spacecraft spent more than two years collecting oxygen from the outermost layers of the Sun.
These layers reflect the composition of the gas and dust cloud, known as the solar nebula, from which the Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago. The results were presented here at the 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
Researchers had feared their data would be lost when Genesis' sample-return capsule crashed in the Utah desert in 2004. But scientists have been working hard to recover the precious information held in the capsule's collector arrays.
Key task
The researchers found that the Sun was enriched in the most common form, or isotope, of oxygen - oxygen-16 - relative to the Earth and to meteorites.
"We have a very clear signal," said Genesis team member Kevin McKeegan, from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
One would not normally characterise the Genesis mission as being lucky, but in this case we were
Kevin McKeegan, UCLA"It's still early days and these data are not very old; but the experiment has worked."
The Earth, Moon and meteorites have widely differing proportions of the three oxygen isotopes: oxygen-16, oxygen-17, and oxygen-18. But the cause of these variations in different parts of the Solar System is unknown.
Measuring this primordial oxygen composition establishes an important baseline for understanding how the planets later evolved their different compositions of oxygen.
"This was the highest priority science objective for Genesis," said Professor McKeegan.
The $264m (£151m) mission spent more than two years gathering ions, or charged atoms, flung out from the Sun. This material is known as the solar wind.
Deep storage
It captured these charged atoms from the solar wind on five collecting plates hung outside the spacecraft for more than 800 days in a region of space about 1.5 million km from Earth.
The collector arrays were then stowed in a sample-return capsule, and the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on 8 September 2004.

Once it had deployed its parachute, the capsule was meant to be caught by a 5m-long hook, wielded by a man in a helicopter. But when its parachute failed, the capsule thudded into the Utah desert, leaving it a mangled mess.
But an instrument known as the concentrator had helped protect the sample.
The concentrator was an electrostatic mirror designed to focus solar wind particles on to a special target.
Its job was to enhance the density of heavy ions, particularly oxygen, that were to be collected.
Clean up
The device gave the atoms an extra energy kick, helping implant them more deeply in the target - away from the contamination which poured in after the crash.
The way the device was engineered also helped protect the samples from the impact.

One would not normally characterise the Genesis mission as being lucky, but in this case we were," Professor McKeegan explained.
The researchers "cleaned" the top 20 nanometres (billionths of a metre) of the sample with a beam of caesium ions to remove terrestrial contamination.
They then measured the composition of the Sun's oxygen in a vacuum.
The measurement will be vital for understanding what caused the differences in oxygen composition between the different bodies in our Solar System.

Paris is looking for a new best friend

Paris Hilton is on a hunt for a new best friend, and she's turning to reality TV to find the one.

The hotel heiress has signed on to top line a new MTV reality show called 'Paris Hilton's My New BFF,' created by former VH1 executives Michael Hirschorn and Stella Stolper.

The 10-episode series finds 20 contestants competing through a series of challenges that test their loyalty, endurance and 'girl politics' to see whether they have what it takes to be a celebrity's best friend, reports Variety.

MTV is producing with Ish Entertainment, Hirschorn's new banner; it marks the first series to come out of Ish's first-look deal with MTV Networks Music Group.

Casting for the reality show is already under way, with some candidates expected to be drawn from ParisBFF.com, an MTV website in which would-be aspiring contestants
can post videos and blogs that make the case for their inclusion on the series.

100 protesters killed in Tibet: Tibetan exile group

DHARMSALA: Tibet's main exile group, quoting unconfirmed sources, claimed on Saturday that Chinese police have killed about 100 Tibetan demonstrators and injured many more during protests against Chinese rule.

The Tibetan government in exile, based in Dharmsala in India, offered no details in its statement, and gave no details on its sources.

Protests by Buddhist monks in Tibet have turned violent in recent days, with shops and vehicles set on fire and gunshots fired in the streets of the region's capital, Lhasa; but independently verified details remain extremely slim.

China maintains rigid control over the area, foreigners need special travel permits to get there and journalists rarely get access except under highly controlled circumstances.

Earlier reports have given lower death tolls. China's official Xinhua News Agency reported that 10 people had been killed.

Doctors condemn super-clinic push

Doctors condemn super-clinic push

Doctors are claiming local health groups are under pressure from government to create new "polyclinics" even if they are not needed.
The clinics, which provide a range of services under one roof, are part of a wide-ranging review of the NHS by health minister Lord Darzi.

The British Medical Association says the clinics will not work everywhere.

But the Department of Health said it was "not imposing health-centres on anyone".

At worst, it could destabilise existing services

Dr Hamish Meldrum, BMA chairman of council
The BMA has raised concerns about polyclinics since they were first mooted by Lord Darzi last year.

It fears they will be too big to offer patients continuity of care, and is concerned that they will not provide value for money.

Adverts asking public and private health providers to tender for contracts to run polyclinics around England are now appearing in trade magazines.

'Mis-interpretation'

BMA chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum said; "This is in addition to whatever services they already have, and whether they feel they need it or not.

"We're worried that at best it's a waste of resources and at worst, it could destabilise existing services."

John May, deputy chairman of the BMA's patient liaison group, said polyclinics could work in large urban areas, like London.

"But for those living outside London, there could be problems about how to get to the polyclinic."

This is about the local NHS making changes that suit patients' needs

Department of Health spokesman

Dr Meldrum said the BMA was concerned the reviews were taking a "big bang approach", rather than introducing gradual change targeted at local need.

Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance which represent local health trusts said: "I think the BMA are right, but there is a misinterpretation of what the centre wants.

"It is being taken too literally. The idea needs to be translated down to the locality."

He added: "Our view is that polyclinics are a good thing, providing they are very flexible in terms of meeting local needs."

Core services

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "We are not imposing health centres on anyone.

"Last October we announced that new money would be invested in new GP-led health centres, one in every PCT, to complement existing services.

"These will offer core GP services 8am-8pm seven days a week, and where it makes sense for local communities and commissioners, may include a range of other services such as pharmacy, diagnostics and dentistry.

"However this is about the local NHS making changes that suit patients' needs: clinically led, locally driven and fit for the 21st century."

Lord Darzi has already published a review of health services in London and an interim report on care across England, in which the polyclinic proposal was set out.

His final report is due in the summer.

Sienna Miller is all set to wed

Actor Sienna Miller is to marry boyfriend Rhys Ifans after his third proposal and plans to keep it a low-key affair.

Miller, who has previously called Ifans her soul mate, recently said, “I am in love — Rhys and I are the best of mates and life is going great.

” The Factory Girl star is said to be planning a summer wedding with the 39-year-old actor, who first proposed to Miller in August by sending her a cryptic message in Welsh, his first language, which read: “Marry the misfit.”

He proposed for a second time in December at her 26th birthday party by hiding an engagement ring in a pile of gifts. But it proved to be third time lucky for him after Miller accepted his proposal earlier this month, a website reports.

London, Mar 9 (ANI): Sir Paul McCartney has a new moniker for his estranged wife Heather Mills - Dracula.

London, Mar 9 (ANI): Sir Paul McCartney has a new moniker for his estranged wife Heather Mills - Dracula.

According to insiders, the ex-Beatle nicknamed Mills 'Dracula' because he feels that she is 'intent on sucking me dry'.

A source said that Macca has started calling the former model Dracula also because he finds the name hilarious and it helps him see the funny part of his bitter divorce battle.

"Macca doesn't call Heather by her first name any more. Now it's Dracula," News of the World quoted the source, as saying.

"He thinks it's hilarious and it helps him see the funny side to a very unhappy part of his life," the source added.

Meanwhile, the judge involved in the estranged couple's divorce deal has given an indication that he might release the decision publicly because of the huge public interest in the divorce battle. (ANI)

Giant telescope opens both eyes

Giant telescope opens both eyes
The world's most powerful optical telescope has opened both of its eyes.
Astronomers at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona have released the first images taken using its two giant 8m diameter mirrors.

The detailed pictures show a spiral galaxy located 102 million light-years away from the Milky Way.

LBT has been 20 years in the making but promises to allow astronomers to probe the Universe further back in time and in more detail than ever before.

"The amount of time and work that was put into this project to reach the point where we are today is immense," said LBT Director Richard Green. "To see the telescope operational with both mirrors is a great feeling."

The $120m (£60m) telescope uses two mirrors in tandem to maximise the amount of light it gathers, which allows astronomers to look deep into the Universe.

Using two 8.4 m (27ft) mirrors will give LBT the equivalent light-gathering capacity of a single 11.8m (39ft) instrument and the resolution of a 22.8m (75ft) telescope.

Impressive detail

The resolution is 10 times greater than the space-based Hubble telescope, which has a 2.4m (8ft) mirror.

"The images that this telescope will produce will be like none seen before," said Professor Peter Strittmatter of the University of Arizona.

The first pictures are false-colour images of the spiral galaxy NGC 2770. The pictures show what is a flat disc of stars and glowing gas.



The images - which take advantage of the telescope's ability to view the same point in space with multiple wavelengths of light - emphasise different features of the galaxy.

Combining ultraviolet and green light shows up clumpy regions of newly formed hot stars in the spiral arms, whilst a combination of red wavelengths highlights older, cooler stars.

The images were taken on 11 and 12 January but have only just now been released.

The LBT is located on Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona. It achieved "first light" with one mirror on 12 October 2005 when it imaged a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda.

Camera spots wolverine in Sierra Nevada

Camera spots wolverine in Sierra Nevada

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A research project aimed at weasels has turned up a bigger prize: a picture of a wolverine, an elusive animal scientists feared may have been driven out of the Sierra Nevada long ago by human activityThe discovery could affect land-use decisions if the wolverine is declared an endangered species, a step the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering, although the animals typically live at high elevations where there is limited development.

A graduate student at Oregon State University, Katie Moriarty, got a picture of a wolverine recently on a motion-and-heat-detecting digital camera set up between Truckee and Sierraville, in the northern part of the mountain range.

Moriarty was trying to get pictures of martens, which are slender brown weasels, for a project she was doing with the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station.

She said that when she saw the wolverine in the picture early last Sunday morning, it was a "complete shock. It was not something I would expect by any means."

News of the picture surprised scientists, who thought wolverines, if they still inhabited the Sierra, would be found only in the southern part of the range, not in the Lake Tahoe area.

There had been sightings of wolverines by reputable people but no solid proof they were still in the Sierra, said Bill Zielinski, a research ecologist for the Forest Service who was working with Moriatry.

"The conventional wisdom was that they were pretty much gone from California," said Zielinski. "There's been a lot of other camera work and a variety of methods used to track rare carnivores. Those same methods, if wolverines had been around, would have detected them, we thought."

Zielinski said he sent a copy of the picture to a colleague who is a wolverine expert and who verified that the animal in the picture "looks like the real deal." He also said he didn't think there had been any tampering with the picture before he received it.

"The student I worked with has the utmost integrity in these matters," Zielinski said. "This picture was in her control at all times. It went immediately from the camera to her e-mail and to mine."

Shawn Sartorius, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the wolverine could be a long-lost California native, an immigrant from Washington or Idaho or a captive wolverine that had been released into the wild.

"It would be fantastic if it's a real California wolverine because they are a genetically distinct group that was probably isolated at least 2,000 years and possibly 12,000 years ago," Sartorius said. "That would be a pretty important find."

He said scientists wanted to get a DNA sample from the wolverine in Moriarty's picture to determine its origin. That could be done by locating hair or feces left behind by the animal.

Paul Spitler, public lands director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz., said his group gets reports of wolverine sightings "on a regular basis" in the southern Sierra.

"We know they are in the Sierra," he said. "We don't know how many and we don't know how far they travel in the Sierra, but we certainly know they exist in the Sierra Nevada."

The Fish and Wildlife Service is scheduled to announce Tuesday whether it plans to move ahead with the lengthy process of classifying wolverines as endangered.

Vegas clinic may have sickened thousands

Vegas clinic may have sickened thousands

LAS VEGAS - Nearly 40,000 people learned this week that a trip to the doctor may have made them sick. In a type of scandal more often associated with Third World countries, a Las Vegas clinic was found to be reusing syringes and vials of medication for nearly four years. The shoddy practices may have led to an outbreak of the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus and exposed patients to HIV, tooThe discovery led to the biggest public health notification operation in U.S. history, brought demands for investigations and caused scores of lawyers to seek out patients at risk for infections.

Thousands of patients are being urged to be tested for the viruses. Six acute cases of hepatitis C have been confirmed. The surgical center and five affiliated clinics have been closed.

"I find it baffling, frankly, that in this day and age anyone would think it was safe to reuse a syringe," said Michael Bell, associate director for infection control at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One of the infected patients is retired airplane mechanic Michael Washington, 67, who was the first to report his infection. On the advice of his doctor, he received a routine colon exam in July at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.

In September, he started to get sick. He was losing weight fast. His urine turned dark. His stomach hurt. By January, it was clear what had happened.

Washington describes his virus as a "creeping death sentence" and worries that others will hear his story and think twice before getting preventive care they need.

In letters that began arriving this week, patients who received injected anesthesia at the endoscopy center from March 2004 to mid-January were urged to get tested for hepatitis B and C, and HIV.

Because all three viruses are transmitted by blood, they could have been passed from one patient to the next by the unsafe practices at the clinic.

The mass notification is the result of a health district investigation that began in January when officials linked an uptick of unusual hepatitis C cases to the clinic.

Health officials say they are most worried about the spread of hepatitis C, which targets the liver but shows no symptoms in as many as 80 percent of infections.

Hepatitis C results in the swelling of the liver and can cause stomach pain, fatigue and jaundice. It may eventually result in liver failure. Even when no symptoms occur, the virus can slowly cause damage to the liver.

Officials estimate that 4 percent of the patients already had the virus when they entered the clinic, compared with 0.5 percent for hepatitis B and less than 0.5 percent for HIV. Hepatitis C also is easier to transmit than HIV, they said.

"You put the two together and hepatitis C is really our big concern," said Brian Labus, senior epidemiologist at the Southern Nevada Health District.

Health inspectors say they observed clinic staff using the same syringe twice to extract anesthesia from a single vial, which was then inappropriately used to treat more than one patient. The practice allows contaminated blood in a used syringe to taint the vial and infect the next patient.

Of the six patients so far diagnosed with acute hepatitis C, five received treatment at the clinic on the same day in late September.

Since 1999, the CDC counts 14 hepatitis outbreaks in the U.S. linked to bad injection practices.

The largest outbreak occurred in Fremont, Neb., where 99 cancer patients were infected at an oncology center from 2001 to 2002. At least one died. The doctor involved in the case acknowledged reusing syringes and settled scores of lawsuit. But he never explained why the syringes were reused.

Bell said such improper procedures appear to be more common in outpatient surgical centers like the endoscopy center. Unlike hospitals, such centers often do not have employees whose sole responsibility is to monitor and educate staff on best practices.

In Las Vegas, clinic staff told inspectors they had been ordered by management to reuse the vials and syringes. Labus described the practice as an unwritten, but long-practiced policy.

Investigators were told the practice was an attempt to cut costs, according to a letter of complaint from the city, which revoked the facility's business license Friday. Five other facilities affiliated with the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada also had their licenses revoked.

The clinic's majority owner, Dipak Desai, a political contributor and member of the governor's commission on health care, has refused to comment on the allegations.

He released a statement expressing concern for the patients and assuring the public the problems had been corrected. He later took out a full-page ad in Sunday's edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal insisting that needles had not been reused and that the chances of contracting an infection at the center in most of the last four years were "extremely low."

Of the thousands of people who have rushed to be tested, many will get positive results, Labus said. More than 15,000 people already have called the health district for information.

But it takes a more sophisticated test, a complete evaluation of risk factors and a clear pattern of infection to determine whether the virus was caught at the facility.

Plenty of lawyers are wading into the mess. Television ads called "health alerts" are soliciting clients. At least a handful of class-action lawsuits have been filed.

On Tuesday, the office of Las Vegas attorney Ed Bernstein was buzzing with phone calls — nearly 1,000 a day, he said. Bernstein said he represents about 1,200 patients at the facility, eight who have tested positive for hepatitis C.

Washington, the infected airplane mechanic, is one of Bernstein's clients.

His wife, Josephine, a registered nurse, wonders how any health care professional could be so reckless: "To maximize profit? For what? What are you going to save?"

OECD: World must act on climate change

OSLO, Norway - The world must respond to climate change and other environmental challenges now while the cost is low or else pay a stiffer price later for its indecision, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Wednesday.
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A new report by 30-nation organization looks at "red light issues" in the environment, including global warming, water shortages, energy, biodiversity loss, transportation, agriculture and fisheries.
"A window of opportunity to act is now open," the report said. "We need forward-looking policies today to avoid high costs of inaction or delayed action over the longer term.
"Without more ambitious policies, increasing pressures on the environment could cause irreversible damage within the next few decades," said the summary, which was released in advance of the report.
The report, called Environmental Outlook to 2030, was to be presented by the organization's secretary-general, Angel Gurria, in Norway's capital Wednesday.
It recommends that governments create policies such as "green taxes" that encourage sound, environmentally friendly technologies and practices. The rich world must help poor countries develop without spewing pollution by providing them with technology and expertise, it says.
The report includes a model of the impact on the environment if no steps are taken, compared to the result if the report's policy recommendations are adopted worldwide. Economic growth would be nearly the same in both cases, but with a much healthier environment if the recommendations are adopted, it says.

Japan looks to a robot future

Japan looks to a robot future
TOKYO - At a university lab in a Tokyo suburb, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgustHooked up to a database of words clustered by association, the robot — dubbed Kansei, or "sensibility" — responds to the word "war" by quivering in what looks like disgust and fear. It hears "love," and its pink lips smile.

"To live among people, robots need to handle complex social tasks," said project leader Junichi Takeno of Meiji University. "Robots will need to work with emotions, to understand and eventually feel them.

While robots are a long way from matching human emotional complexity, the country is perhaps the closest to a future — once the stuff of science fiction — where humans and intelligent robots routinely live side by side and interact socially.

Robots are already taken for granted in Japanese factories, so much so that they are sometimes welcomed on their first day at work with Shinto religious ceremonies. Robots make sushi. Robots plant rice and tend paddies.

There are robots serving as receptionists, vacuuming office corridors, spoon-feeding the elderly. They serve tea, greet company guests and chatter away at public technology displays. Now startups are marching out robotic home helpers.

They aren't all humanoid. The Paro is a furry robot seal fitted with sensors beneath its fur and whiskers, designed to comfort the lonely, opening and closing its eyes and moving its flippers.

For Japan, the robotics revolution is an imperative. With more than a fifth of the population 65 or older, the country is banking on robots to replenish the work force and care for the elderly.

In the past several years, the government has funded a plethora of robotics-related efforts, including some $42 million for the first phase of a humanoid robotics project, and $10 million a year between 2006 and 2010 to develop key robot technologies.

The government estimates the industry could surge from about $5.2 billion in 2006 to $26 billion in 2010 and nearly $70 billion by 2025.

Besides financial and technological power, the robot wave is favored by the Japanese mind-set as well.

Robots have long been portrayed as friendly helpers in Japanese popular culture, a far cry from the often rebellious and violent machines that often inhabit Western science fiction.

This is, after all, the country that invented Tamagotchi, the hand-held mechanical pets that captivated the children of the world.

Japanese are also more accepting of robots because the native Shinto religion often blurs boundaries between the animate and inanimate, experts say. To the Japanese psyche, the idea of a humanoid robot with feelings doesn't feel as creepy — or as threatening — as it might do in other cultures.

Still, Japan faces a vast challenge in making the leap — commercially and culturally — from toys, gimmicks and the experimental robots churned out by labs like Takeno's to full-blown human replacements that ordinary people can afford and use safely.

"People are still asking whether people really want robots running around their homes, and folding their clothes," said Damian Thong, senior technology analyst at Macquarie Bank in Tokyo.

"But then again, Japan's the only country in the world where everyone has an electric toilet," he said. "We could be looking at a robotics revolution."

That revolution has been going on quietly for some time.

Japan is already an industrial robot powerhouse. Over 370,000 robots worked at factories across Japan in 2005, about 40 percent of the global total and 32 robots for every 1,000 Japanese manufacturing employees, according to a recent report by Macquarie, which had no numbers from subsequent years.

And they won't be claiming overtime or drawing pensions when they're retired.

"The cost of machinery is going down, while labor costs are rising," said Eimei Onaga, CEO of Innovation Matrix Inc., a company that distributes Japanese robotics technology in the U.S. "Soon, robots could even replace low-cost workers at small firms, greatly boosting productivity."

That's just what the Japanese government has been counting on. A 2007 national technology roadmap by the Trade Ministry calls for 1 million industrial robots to be installed throughout the country by 2025.

A single robot can replace about 10 employees, the roadmap assumes — meaning Japan's future million-robot army of workers could take the place of 10 million humans. That's about 15 percent of the current work force.

"Robots are the cornerstone of Japan's international competitiveness," Shunichi Uchiyama, the Trade Ministry's chief of manufacturing industry policy, said at a recent seminar. "We expect robotics technology to enter even more sectors going forward."

Meanwhile, localities looking to boost regional industry clusters have seized on robotics technology as a way to spur advances in other fields.

Robotic technology is used to build more complex cars, for instance, and surgical equipment.

The logical next step is robots in everyday life.

At a hospital in Aizu Wakamatsu, 190 miles north of Tokyo, a child-sized white and blue robot wheels across the floor, guiding patients to and from the outpatients' surgery area.

The robot, made by startup Tmsk, sports perky catlike ears, recites simple greetings, and uses sensors to detect and warn people in the way. It helpfully prints out maps of the hospital, and even checks the state of patients' arteries.

The Aizu Chuo Hospital spent about some $557,000 installing three of the robots in its waiting rooms to test patients' reactions. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, said spokesman Naoya Narita.

"We feel this is a good division of labor. Robots won't ever become doctors, but they can be guides and receptionists," Narita said.

Still, the wheeled machines hadn't won over all seniors crowding the hospital waiting room on a weekday morning.

"It just told us to get out of the way!" huffed wheelchair-bound Hiroshi Asami, 81. "It's a robot. It's the one who should get out my way."

"I prefer dealing with real people," he said.

Another roadblock is money.

For all its research, Japan has yet to come up with a commercially successful consumer robot. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. failed to sell even one of its pricey toddler-sized Wakamaru robots, launched in 2003 as domestic helpers.

Though initially popular, Sony Corp. pulled the plug on its robot dog, Aibo, in 2006, just seven years after its launch. With a price tag of a whopping $2,000, Aibo never managed to break into the mass market.

One of the only commercially successful consumer robots so far is made by an American company, iRobot Corp. The Roomba vacuum cleaner robot is self-propelled and can clean rooms without supervision.

"We can pretty much make anything, but we have to ask, what are people actually going to buy?" said iRobot CEO Helen Greiner. The company has sold 2.5 million Roombas — which retail for as little as $120 — since the line was launched in 2002.

Still, with the correct approach, robots could provide a wealth of consumer goods, Greiner stressed at a recent convention.

Sure enough, Japanese makers are catching on, launching low-cost robots like Tomy's $300 i-Sobot, a toy-like hobby robot that comes with 17 motors, can recognize spoken words and can be remote-controlled.

Sony is also trying to learn from past mistakes, launching a much cheaper $350 rolling speaker robot last year that built on its robotics technology.

"What we need now isn't the ultimate humanoid robot," said Kyoji Takenaka, the head of the industry-wide Robot Business Promotion Council.

"Engineers need to remember that the key to developing robots isn't in the lab, but in everyday life."

Still, some of the most eye-catching developments in robotics are coming out of Japan's labs.

Researchers at Osaka University, for instance, are developing a robot to better understand child development.

The "Child-Robot with Biomimetic Body" is designed to mimic the motions of a toddler. It responds to sounds, and sensors in its eyes can see and react to people. It wiggles, changes facial expressions, and makes gurgling sounds.

The team leader, Minoru Asada, is working on artificial intelligence software that would allow the child to "learn" as it progresses.

"Right now, it only goes, 'Ah, ah.' But as we develop its learning function, we hope it can start saying more complex sentences and moving on its own will," Asada said. "Next-generation robots need to be able to learn and develop themselves."

For Hiroshi Ishiguro, also at Osaka University, the key is to make robots that look like human beings. His Geminoid robot looks uncannily like himself — down to the black, wiry hair and slight tan.

"In the end, we don't want to interact with machines or computers. We want to interact with technology in a human way so it's natural and valid to try to make robots look like us," he said.

"One day, they will live among us," Ishiguro said. "Then you'd have to ask me: 'Are you human? Or a robot?'"

Ahmadinejad calls Iraq 'brotherly'

Ahmadinejad calls Iraq 'brotherly'

BAGHDAD - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday his landmark visit to Iraq opened a new chapter in "brotherly" relations between the two countries, which were once bitter enemiesAhmadinejad is the first Iranian president to visit Iraq. The trip not only highlights his country's growing influence on its Arab neighbor in the post-Saddam Hussein era, but it also serves as an act of defiance toward the U.S., which accuses Iran of training and giving weapons to Shiite extremists in Iraq.

The Iranian leader went from Baghdad's airport to a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who gave him a red-carpet welcome. The two kissed four times on the cheek in the traditional fashion and a band played the two countries' national anthems.

"We had very good talks that were friendly and brotherly. ... We have mutual understandings and views in all fields, and both sides plan to improve relations as much as possible," Ahmadinejad said in a news conference with Talabani at the Iraqi president's residence, located across the Tigris River from the new U.S. Embassy in the fortified Green Zone.

Talabani said the two discussed economic, political, security and oil issues and planned to sign several agreements later. But he said the issue of borders, including the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway between the two countries, was not discussed.

Iran has denied U.S. charges that it aids militants, and Ahmadinejad stressed that his country wanted a stable Iraq that would benefit the region.

"A united Iraq, a sovereign Iraq and an advanced Iraq is to the benefit of all regional nations and the people of Iran," he said.

The news conference appeared to end abruptly after a reporter asked Ahmadinejad about the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which was allied with Saddam during the bitter 1980s war between the two countries. The group has opposed Iran's Islamic republic and has operated out of Iraq. The U.S. and European Union list it as a terrorist organization.

Talabani interjected, saying: "This issue has been discussed earlier and the presence of those as a terrorist organization is constitutionally not allowed. We will endeavor to get rid of them out of the Iraqi territory soon."

After discussions with Talabani, Ahmadinejad went to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Both of the Iraqi leaders have made official visits to Iran since taking office.

The U.S. has said it will have no involvement in Ahmadinejad's visit. Ahmadinejad arrived in Iraq a day after Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to Baghdad on an unannounced visit with commanders and Iraqi officials.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told The Associated Press that Ahmadinejad plans to leave Monday morning.

Though both are Shiite-majority countries, Iran and Iraq were hostile to each other throughout Saddam's regime. Their eight-year war after Saddam invaded Iran in 1980 cost about 1 million lives.

But when Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime fell and Iraq's Shiite majority took power after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, long-standing ties between the Shiites of both countries flourished again, though the two neighbors have yet to sign a peace treaty.

Many of Iraq's Shiite leaders lived in exile in Iran during Saddam's rule, and Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, speaks fluent Farsi.

With the trip, Ahmadinejad also may be trying to bolster his support back home ahead of parliamentary elections later this month. They are seen as referendum on the Iranian president, who has come under criticism in his country for spending too much time on anti-Western rhetoric and not enough on Iran's economic problems.

The U.S. has tried to downplay Ahmadinejad's visit. It has said it welcomed Iran's stated policy of promoting stability but that its actions have done just the opposite.

President Bush denied that Ahmadinejad's visit undermined U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran, but had some advice for what al-Maliki should say to the Iranian leader.

"He's a neighbor. And the message needs to be, quit sending in sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens," Bush said.

In Tehran, Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini criticized Bush.

"His remarks are an intervention in the friendly, brotherly and sincere relations between Iran and Iraq," Hosseini told reporters Sunday after Ahmadinejad left Iran. "Americans do not want the relations to grow."